Forums > Social Chat > Devestation in NY

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 13th Sep 2001
Here's the link: https://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,551036,00.html

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 13th Sep 2001
I think that article is deliberately aimed at generating hits via a strong anti-american theme, during a time when all minds are on the deaths of innocent americans...a point which this article seems to deliberately brush over.It does however, supply an interesting mirror to which can be put all the poorly thoughtout nationalistic rehetoric which is pouring out of media outlets globally.Josh

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 14th Sep 2001
I understand your comment, for this reason, and obviously the horror and suffering that is being felt, a friend's brother was one of the passengers, I'm not trying to be insensitive, which is why I stressed that I meant no offence, .But at such an important time in history, where a few decisions that will be made, or already have been made, will effect the global population - a time where the media reports are so one-sided I think we need to look at all perspectives before coming to conclusions. This affects the world, and we need to view it on that perspective.Peace>Love>&>Unity

Posted: 14th Sep 2001
Peace>Love>Unity I'm glad you brought this to view, the United States (british citizen but have been living here for over 14 years of my 21 years of life) is protected by the democracy as if shrouded in a huge plastic containment bubble. however when someone pops that bubble, the government produces another one, and tells the victims and its contained, that what they saw out side of that bubble is not real, that everything inside the bubble counts and that people who threaten the existance of this bubble need to be killed. the USA has involved itself in so many politcal affairs and moral debates of other countries. they have pried their ways and ethics into other countries religions and ways of thinking. it is for that reason why the world hates the United States as much as it does, they view us as arrogant pigs who cant begin to fathom the dirt we have stirred from the bottom of the pool. we think that this great country of ours is always doing what is right. people can not begin to comprehend the extent of our involvement in the world affairs of today. I admit I was devistated when the WTC came crashing down. people were horrified, they needed comforting.. they needed people to hold them and people wept. What about those kids who are 7 or 8 years old, living in a shack along or close to the west bank. the gaza strip or one of the other religious cities of the world, under barrage of gunfire and bombing. their life in shacks, unable to sleep for fear of being killed, walking to school maybe their last chore for the day. sand banks with barbed wire to prevent bullets from penetrating their buildings. missing brothers, fathers, mothers, I remember a bit of BBC footage, a father and his 8 year old daughter pressed against a wall as palistinian soldiers fired upon them pop shot after pop shot, getting closer and closer to them, the reporter completely helpless in aiding them kept filming, finally a shot hit the mans daughter in the head... she lay limp in his arms, MY HEART GOES OUT TO THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the man cried before he was picked off. it was like a game to them... that was some sick sh*t. the people who were flash burned and killed were lucky not to see it coming... this man and the rest of the world saw what horrific tragedy that was.... but im sure only a handful of you even know what im talking about. its because it didnt happen in the United States of Good Old America, it didnt happen here, we dont need to air it. fu*k the rest of the world, we dont need to see their hardship. do you know where i saw this footage? on channel 21, (PBS= Public Broadcasting Service) ITN Network News it was international news, i would have never seen that footage if it werent for my dad who likes to keep up with the world news... sure the WTC was a horrible act upon the United States, but you have to ask why, Bush is clouding everyones minds by saying, they attacked us because they are jelous of our freedom.. What the Fu(|< are you talking about bush?!?!? its our foreign affairs that got us in trouble and now all we can do is choose to ignore the obvious and create another bubble to live in while finding someone to point a finger at. ::::sigh:::::: the world will never learn.

Posted: 14th Sep 2001
Yes I agree..it is the foreign policy of america which has made them targets of terrorist attacks..not that I agree with the terrorists, what they did was wrong, and they should be killed.but I do understand their motivations.And I don't think that we should go bombing the heck out of afghanistan either..that would only exacerbate the situation, and make the USA look worse, meaning MORE terrorist attacks.

~whoosh whoosh whoosh~

Posted: 14th Sep 2001
Raving Lunatic:Here's an interesting post from one of the members of penny-arcade.com....this is IMO... the best answer for the attack..."In my thinking, that's what this is all about. Often, American takes its power for granted, thinking that if other lesser countries cannot resolve their differences, then we'll do it for them, and with force if we have to. Being a Capitalist society, and with funding being pulled away from the military in the past decade, many consider not the armed forces to be our power, but out economy. So, this was a message. "You believe you are invincible, but you have your weaknesses. And your Achille's Heel is your money, your business. If we bring that down, we bring you down to our level." They've done this to shake us, not destroy us."(dunno the username sorry)

Posted: 14th Sep 2001
I read that article and am now really pissed off. I tried not to get into any discussions about this because I am aware of my own ingorance in many area's of politics. But after reading that article, I feel I need to get this off my chest.One:Are all the other governments not just as bad as the USA's? I have not seen or heard of any others the worked any better, and why do all these people flock to the USA asking for political asylum, if we're soooo bad???Two:If the USA stayed in it's own business and never helped anyone else, everyone who is bashing us for getting involved would be bashing us for NOT getting involved, calling us self-centered bastards, just like they do now. so were damned if we do and damned if we don't. I'm not saying that the US gov't hasn't made bad decisions or is pure of heart. I'm just saying, nevermind... I do not even know what I'm trying to say, just that reading that article broke resolve not to get into any political arguments, and that pisses me off as much as that article.I hope noone actually will read this, cause i don't think I have the will to argue any of it....Oottat

It's only funny until someone gets hurt.... Then it's a COMPETITION!!!

Posted: 15th Sep 2001
The article sounds very familiar to me...People tell me all the time that americans are stupid, self centered (cause they cant even tell where other countries are - this one time an american woman asked me if Brazil is in Africa, come on, we are the 5th country in size, 9th economy of the world, we are in South America!!), and think they're the best.I particullarly dont agree with that view of american people. Ive been to US many times and I feel its a place where everything works and people live well. Everyone knows how to read, has money and is free. Things work around there. People are honest and police is not corrupt. Criminals are punished, poor people have shelters. Many leftist friends of mine say US is a plague, that americans are arrogant and that Brazil should not behave like an economic slave to USA. Our economy depends on the United States.I would never live in the US, but I admire it.But please, americans, peacefully I ask you to accept the truth of that article.The whole world depends on your country, but the whole world also fears you and has something against you. Or everything against you.Believe that you are disliked, because you are. BUT, that happens to every leader right?You should expect that.Dont be angry at that article.Just worry about it.Pres Bush should worry about that kind of stuff. plur------------------"Lady bug lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children will burn! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!![This message has been edited by plastikgirl (edited 16 September 2001).]

Lady bug lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire, and your children will burn! Ashes, ashes, all fall down!!

Posted: 16th Sep 2001
a very interesting article and it's important to be able to look at this situation from both sides but, what has this got to do with the people going to work so that thier children can eat? unfortunately it has taken crisis for people to recognise the nightmares going on in the world beyond the square they live in. we need to move on and take advantage of this crisis to unite people around the globe.the views of the government and the rest of society aren't neccesarily always the same.does that mean i should fear for my life because i disagree with the way john howard treated afghanee refugees?americans aren't the only innocent people suffering at this time...sorry for making such a disjointed argument, just snippets of my brain.

floating
drifting
fading away
how could these stimulants lead us astray?

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 16th Sep 2001
I would like to point out that although there are many developing nations in particular whose economies are dependent upon America, America's way of life is also dependent on those countries remaining developing. If there is nowhere for Nike to get labour for $3 a day (or whatever) everyone will be paying a Sh!tload more for their Nikes...or Nike will go out of business...see what I mean? Buying Locally produced and owned products is the only way to break this economic status quo....which I might point out, is probly one of the reasons so many ppl hate the developed western nations (The US being the figurehead of Capitalism)Josh

Posted: 16th Sep 2001
Oottat,Many people have read that article and have seen a lot of truth in it, it only seems insensitive in light of the fact that many people died recently. However the point it’s trying to raise is a valid one and needs to be addressed with thought, not anger. In reply to your 2 questions:>Are all the other governments not just as bad as the USA's?If the USA stayed in it's own business and never helped anyone else, everyone who is bashing us for getting involved would be bashing us for NOT getting involved, calling us self-centered bastards, just like they do now. so were damned if we do and damned if we don't. We're nothing but the nerds they think we are

Posted: 16th Sep 2001
The major problem in america right now is the fact that most americans still don't have any idea why these terrorists hate us. Why? Because most people get ALL of their information off of corperate sponsered news channels on TV, and big money television only gives the view that is benefitial to their big money. Most people truely have no idea why the terrorists are so pissed off at us. When you see a pole saying "70% of americans want to...blah blah blah", etc, etc...remember that a person cannot make wise, inteligent decisions if they are not well informed. And guess what, americans are not well informed, even though most of them think they are...because they only watch the nightly news on TV and don't read or listen to other information sources. Not once have I seen anything, like the above referenced article, on TV. You know what? That article is right about alot of stuff, and most Americans are ignorant of these facts. The worst part is, if you tell an american about their ignorancre they get all pissed off and tell you that you are full of sh_t or they just turn their mind off to you. Confront a person with their brain washing and they get all pissed off or just slam their mind shut.

we eat and we drink and we smoke and we try!

Posted: 17th Sep 2001
Where.... Like Alternativa... some americans doesn't know what does US do with other countries... example here in Panama... their main interest here is the Canal of Panama.... and when I mention Panama, they don't know where it is... and 12 years ago, there was a guy named Noriega(a drug dealer) kind of Bin Laden... and America came here and tried to capture him, and like 3,000 innocent people died around here... it was caos around here... I don't know if bunch of you knew that and that's why many panamenians doesn't like them, btw, I was a child at that time...------------------[- y.a.s.h.i.r.o. -]

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 17th Sep 2001
My reason for posting the article was because I know how much power over a nation/world has, and as horrific as the attack was - my deepest sentinments go out to all the innocent people who have lost their lives/their family and friends, a friends cousin was in the first plane -and I was certainly not trying to cause any offence -- but all the reports were very one-sided, and I know that putting it on so soon after the tragedy my cause strong reactions, the reaction to it will have world-wide reprocutions and people need to be aware of the full details.We are one world and violence merely creates more violence, and all it does is create a short-term blanket of a solution but creates a tsunami affect for the future. Lets hope that the culprits of this are brought to justice and give the victims and their families justice - but most of all lets hope the world learns something from this so that it won't happen again.Peace>Love>&>Unity (Maybe in the next life)

Posted: 17th Sep 2001
You'll have to forgive us. We are an ignorant people. Most people here are so engrained in staying the way they are, they forget that life is about evolving into something better; not trying to stay king of the hill. I'm really afraid that the US is going to start a massive world war. These acts of terrorism cannot be ignored, but I think the best way is for the world the get together and freeze their assests. To attempt to thwart such attacks in the future, we MUST change our foreign policy. People here think you're crazy if you tell them that most people think of us the way we think of China. We, as a country are well aware of our image abroad, but most people here pass it off as everyone being jelous about how nice we have it here. That's why it's being played off like that in the media. What's interesting to me is that our gov't does a pretty good job of dealing with its' people one way, and the rest of the world another, but still manages to keep it's people blindfolded in order to achieve it's own self serving needs. My family has lived here for about 120yrs, so I don't know why I don't trust the gov't to tell me the truth. I've never left the US, I've never had an outsider's view. I refuse to believe anything that comes from the gov't, as they are liars and killers. The really scary thing is: Congress is about to let loose the CIA. They have been responsible for funding foreign wars and setting up puppet gov'ts, and now Congress is going to give them how many BILLIONS that they won't have to account for??? Please pray for the US that its' leaders will understand, and its' people will see through the lies. I will protest all acts of war. peace is not acheived through military objectives...

Posted: 17th Sep 2001
Here is an Email I got from my little sister, she lived next door to those bastards in Southern California.Hey there, I don't know if you have heard yet, but three of the dirty Terrorist bastards were my neighbors. We live in Parkwood Apts here inClairemont on Balboa. It is all over the papers and the News. The FBI was out here on Friday and the news has been here everyday andover at the Muslim Mosque nest door. I have had the opportunity several times in the past years to run the Terrorists over in my big gasguzzling SUV as they crossed the street to go next door the Muslim Mosque. Never did I dream that what they were talking about as theyfloated lazily in MY POOL next to MY LAUNDRY ROOM was the plan to hijack a boehing and send it straight into the Pentagon. May they rest in HELL and BURN FOR ETERNITY. That is what they get for praying to ALAH. MUHAMMAD be damned forteaching this as a way of life. You can't tell me that none of our ARAB neighbors who went to "church" with them didn't know of there plot. They disappeared about 6 months ago, guess that is when they went to Arizona to go to flight school. They came back though, then left again about 3 weeks ago, to NYC I suppose to start there reign of terrorism. I am so saddened by this. If I had been a good American and run them over with my car when I saw them polluting my pool, and going next door to pray toALAH, I'd be on trial right now but there would be 300 alive Americans and the Pentagon would still be standing, and no one would haveknown that I was a hero!!! Be that as it may, I need to stop ranting, I hurt mostly because the terrorist are no longer, "nameless and faceless evil men". They havenames and faces that I know and recognize. They were men who I knew and saw on an almost daily basis, this makes it all the more realand hurtful. I think George W needs to come visit us here at Parkwood Apts and ask what we think he should do to Afgahnistan. I have a suggestion, send all these dirty pig-fuckers from here HOME, then Carpet bomb them til they bleed as red as America Does-AMEN Love ya Bubba and God Bless America Rachel ps. We are moving to Santee on Sept 23rd, happens to be my birthday and Thank God to get out of here. I can't stand to walk past thedoor of those Terrorists, every day it is a constant reminder of the evil that was plotted here and fulfilled in NYC.

we eat and we drink and we smoke and we try!

AnonymousPLATINUM Member

Posted: 17th Sep 2001
before we go and kill everyone in afghanistan, please read below....By Tamim Ansary I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity,but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators.They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghanpeople have not overthrown the Taliban. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done.Eradicate their hospitals?Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move toofast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul anddropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--byraping once again the people they've been raping all this time. So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with groundtroops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to bedone" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What'sactually on the table is americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistanwould have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam andthe West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program.That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else? Tamim Ansary

Posted: 17th Sep 2001
no comment. i was there right after the whole incident happened. i lived there for a year, and i never once had any kind of prejudice or hate shown to me. yes, it is true when i tell people i lived in panama, they immediately think i mean florida. where do you live in panama?

anyone got a light?